Craig Bateman

August 22nd, 2019

‘Shadow education’ is a form of private supplementary tutoring which mimics the curriculum of mainstream schooling. It is used to enrich learning or remedy educational need. Originating in East Asia, shadow education has evolved into a global phenomenon.

As of 2016, shadow education was received by a quarterof secondary school students (10 to 18 year olds) in England and Wales. It is consequently unsurprising that the Sutton Trust acknowledges it as the “hidden secret” of British education. Yet there are signs that the emergence of shadow education is now more of a cause for concern than the basis of success.

Exacerbating financial burdens

Private supplementary tuition has been traditionally unique to East Asian countries such as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong where Confucian ideals of academic success manifest in pervasive episodes of “education fever”.

In South Korea, expenditure on shadow education accounts for almost 10% of family expenditure. Motivating such consumption are supposedly “tight linkages” between educational outcome and occupational success. However, it has led to significant “over-investment”, reducing the aggregate benefit shadow education yields.

In the UK, shadow education has undergone seismic growth. It is estimated that 48% of secondary-school children in London receive shadow education. It is also primarily used to prime students for high-stake tests such as for grammar school admissions and not remedial learning.

Combined with uncontrollable fees, shadow education appears incompatible with Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that enshrines the right to fee-free universal education in international law. For example, households with the top 10% annual income spend over three timesas much as the average household on shadow education.

Shadow education also constitutes a serious block on social mobility. Polling finds a third of parents would like to purchase shadow education for their children but feel it is too expensive. The Sutton Trust has therefore proposed a government-funded programme of means-tested vouchers aimed at “ameliorating” differences in access. Yet questions about why the state should value shadow education remain unaddressed.

The Sanctity of Childhood

British education has been traditionally framed within a social democratic discourse. This subscribes to principles of universalism embodied by post-war enactments such as the 1944 Education Act that made comprehensive education a right for all children in the United Kingdom.

More recently there has been a shift towards the ‘social investment’ paradigm which values market opportunities as catalysts for human capital development. It recognises new social risks such as precarious employment and exploits parents’ fears over children’s future. It fuels dissatisfaction with mainstream schooling and sponsors the growth of shadow education.

Under shadow education responsibility for academic success becomes recast as a family matter than a collective responsibility. Couched in social investment language, this approach makes inroads into ‘the sanctity of childhood’, the notion of childhood as a ‘quarantine period’ separate from economic pressures associated with adulthood. Recast as an object of investment, the child also becomes seen as “a “citizen-worker” of the future than a “citizen-child of the present”.

With its future-orientation, excessive shadow education restricts children’s leisure time in ways that are psychologically and educationally undesirable. South Korea’s obsession with education has led to reports of “sleep deprivation and caffeine addiction or even suicide”.

Towards a Private Tutoring Quality Mark

Without careful monitoring, there are grave concerns that South Korea’s national obsession with shadow education could implode into a global crisis. In response, it has been banned at various times in Cambodia, Mauritius, Myanmar and Korea.

Yet shadow education will not simply go away if policy discourse remains focused on preparing children for global competition. Instead it requires a substantial shift in discourse to considerably alter these trends. This partially requires the state withdrawing its prioritisation of education, but this would be unfavourable in a time of incessant global competition.

Moreover, it would necessitate the state sanctioning the exercise of ‘parental partiality’. This would face much objection since every parent understandably wants to do the best for their child. Nonetheless, there is growing concern about the absence of quality assurance, due partly to the state’s reluctance to acknowledge shadow education.

Policy prescriptions must provide assurances to parents which address these concerns. It must be accessible to all children and a high ethical quality that doesn’t damage children’s wider development.

One policy intervention would be to introduce a private tutoring ‘quality mark.’ There is precedent in this type of intervention since all UK childcare providers must be state-registered. This would build upon work undertaken by the Tutors’ Association and bring shadow education within the purview of the state. It would empower the state to forge a democratic counter-discourse against inroads that the social investment paradigm is starting to make in education policy.

This blog is based on a summative essay submitted to the postgraduate course ‘International Public and Social Policy’ (SA4AA) in the academic year 2018/2019.

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Social Policy Blog, nor of the London School of Economics.

About the author

Craig Bateman

Craig Bateman is a master’s student in International Social and Public Policy at the London School of Economics. He graduated from St Chad’s College Durham with a first-class, joint honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and Politics in June 2018. Craig’s scholarly interests include human rights, social integration, and welfare reform. He is an advocate for young people’s participation in politics, having represented his peers at the United Nations, in Parliament, and at Number 10 Downing Street.

Posted In:
International Social and Public Policy

3 Comments

Shadow education is certainly a worldwide phenomenon of many nations and societies as I have discussed in my book, Shadow Education as Worldwide Curriculum Studies. It is a search area that awaits much more investigations as we do not yet fully understand impacts, meanings, and ramifications on individuals, communities, and educational cultures around the world.

Thank you Jung-Hoon, I agree with your comment – so much of ‘shadow education’ quite literally remains in the ‘shadows’, which makes it extra difficult for legislators to regulate and academics to study. If my recommendation of a quality trade mark is adopted, it would become more ‘visible’, and thereby enable policy-makers to introduce initiatives which lessen its socio-economic impacts.

I disagree with your statement that:
“Combined with uncontrollable fees, shadow education appears incompatible with Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that enshrines the right to fee-free universal education in international law.”

Now Article 26 section 1 states:
“Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.”

If interpreted loosely and on it might support your argument, but section 3 of the same Article states:
“Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”

This prior right of parental choice in the lives and livelihoods of their children is as fundamental and basic a right as it gets, so although one might grant that large-scale tutoring can cause some policy discomforts on macro-level, it certainly does not constitute an incompatibility with the universal right to education.

Combined with the fact that regulating a cottage industry like tutoring (yes there are agencies, but these represent a small fraction of the market) would be as difficult as regulating babysitters, cleaners and dog-walkers, I’d argue policy should focus on improving state-provision of education in schools, removing the need for supplementary education in the first place.

That said, the work of the Sutton Trust in expanding access to tuition (alongside voluntary tutoring agencies like Action Tutoring) is commendable, given the benefits tutoring has on learning, and the idea of ‘Tuition Vouchers’ although potentially impractical is a proposal with merit.